More than Thirty Years (2006) deals with the paradox inherent in the action of waiting, as a vehicle to meditate on conflicts and changes. Having a documentary approach, I create interior portraits of Saharawi refugees, in a certain state of limbo.

Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa, located in the south of Morocco, in the African northwest along the Atlantic coast, was the only territory in the region that was not colonized by the French, but was under Spanish rule for nearly a century. When Spain withdrew from its former colony, known then as the Spanish Sahara, at the end of 1975, it sparked a long-standing territorial dispute. A dispute that continues to this day.

More than thirty years is the period of time that the Saharawi country has been waiting for the United Nations to hold a referendum on their right to self-determination (*).

My work reflects on the idea of ​​waiting for something that never comes or happens, which materializes a failure.

(*) The right of "self-determination" is the right of people to decide their own forms of government, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and structure themselves freely, without external mediation and in accordance with the principle of equity.

© Susana I. Espana